Young Fletcher at age 16 was wounded and captured during the battle, which was part of the American retreat from the Siege of Fort Ticonderoga.[1] He made his escape from his British captors and was then forced to serve his contractual three years by the Continental Army.[2]
After the war, Fletcher returned to the place of his birth, New Ipswich, New Hampshire, where he married (twice), owned and managed textile mills, and raised a family in a home that still stands at Smithville.
One of his daughters, Polly, married Peter Felt, the third great-grandson of first-generation colonist George Felt.
In 1798, Fletcher wrote A narrative of the captivity and sufferings of Mr. Ebenezer Fletcher; who was wounded at Hubbardton, in the year 1777 and taken prisoner by the British, and after recovering a little from his wounds, made his escape from them, and returned back to New Ipswich, written by himself. The account was first published by Samuel Preston in Amherst, New Hampshire,[3] and has since been published numerous times, including an edition for the American bicentennial.
Fletcher's narrative has become "emblematic" of the life of a young, curious and reluctant common Revolutionary War soldier.[4] [5] [6]